It's a small world
Haven't posted in a while, so I thought it might be worth a 'state of the chryssalid' address. Here's what's up:
No, I haven't read Deathly Hollows yet. Wifey just finished it, but I'm one of those freaks who re-reads the entire series before reading a new one (a serious problem if/when Jordan ever writes another book) and I'm not quite done with Order of the Phoenix yet. I'm listening to it on the iPod a couple hours a day, but it's a long damn book and I've still got Half-Blood Prince to go so it'll be a while. Looking forward to it though.
And some minor work drama:
This is the last week I'll be having to get up at 5:30am to work the private sector job full time. Friday's the last day, then I go to 1/4 time and working mostly remotely. The plan is that I'll only be coming into the Boston-area office once a month. That'll be a relief. Two interesting items are associated with this impending shift back to academia from the private sector. One is that I really need to get my ass in academic gear to get my fall classes prepped for teaching at the old alma hampster. The second, and perhaps more interesting, is the replacement I/we have hired to take over most of my job.
We've hired a guy I went to grad school with. He was 2 years ahead of me when I entered, but graduated just a tad after me. (No judgement should be attached to this, the program was a bitch and most people took longer than I did. I pushed my way through very aggressively and sacrificed having any decent publications on my CV in order to finish early.) He also happens to be the ex- of my friend PFG. On the one hand, I always got along with him okay, though we didn't make any effort to stay in touch after we stopped seeing each other at school. On the other hand, while he's not exactly directly my subordinate, I think my position is somewhat higher than his. This has the potential to be personally awkward given that I'm friends with his ex- and he was senior to me in grad school. We'll have to see how the personal dynamics work out.
It is pretty relieving though that the private sector thing is non-critical. Even if the absolute worst happens and I end up fired with prejudice or something, there's no reason I ever need this company as a reference. I've got another job. So it takes some pressure off, which is nice. I do hope to continue a productive relationship here for a while (good money and good interesting research), but I don't have to. But man it's much cooler to be able to talk about pain research at parties instead of psycholinguistics. Not that I go to many parties, but I'd like to not put people to sleep when I do.
Family is pretty good. We all recovered from the CO trip and (miracle of miracles) nobody ever even got sick. The Pirate liked picking blueberries with her great-grandfather last weekend (for a few minutes until she got too hot). Mostly we're pretty happy, and that's good. I get to start seeing my shrink again next week, any maybe that'll help start resolving the lingering back-burnered issues. We get to go to Chicago next month for a friend's wedding, and we're combining it with our 5th anniversary celebration, so it should be fun!
No, I haven't read Deathly Hollows yet. Wifey just finished it, but I'm one of those freaks who re-reads the entire series before reading a new one (a serious problem if/when Jordan ever writes another book) and I'm not quite done with Order of the Phoenix yet. I'm listening to it on the iPod a couple hours a day, but it's a long damn book and I've still got Half-Blood Prince to go so it'll be a while. Looking forward to it though.
And some minor work drama:
This is the last week I'll be having to get up at 5:30am to work the private sector job full time. Friday's the last day, then I go to 1/4 time and working mostly remotely. The plan is that I'll only be coming into the Boston-area office once a month. That'll be a relief. Two interesting items are associated with this impending shift back to academia from the private sector. One is that I really need to get my ass in academic gear to get my fall classes prepped for teaching at the old alma hampster. The second, and perhaps more interesting, is the replacement I/we have hired to take over most of my job.
We've hired a guy I went to grad school with. He was 2 years ahead of me when I entered, but graduated just a tad after me. (No judgement should be attached to this, the program was a bitch and most people took longer than I did. I pushed my way through very aggressively and sacrificed having any decent publications on my CV in order to finish early.) He also happens to be the ex- of my friend PFG. On the one hand, I always got along with him okay, though we didn't make any effort to stay in touch after we stopped seeing each other at school. On the other hand, while he's not exactly directly my subordinate, I think my position is somewhat higher than his. This has the potential to be personally awkward given that I'm friends with his ex- and he was senior to me in grad school. We'll have to see how the personal dynamics work out.
It is pretty relieving though that the private sector thing is non-critical. Even if the absolute worst happens and I end up fired with prejudice or something, there's no reason I ever need this company as a reference. I've got another job. So it takes some pressure off, which is nice. I do hope to continue a productive relationship here for a while (good money and good interesting research), but I don't have to. But man it's much cooler to be able to talk about pain research at parties instead of psycholinguistics. Not that I go to many parties, but I'd like to not put people to sleep when I do.
Family is pretty good. We all recovered from the CO trip and (miracle of miracles) nobody ever even got sick. The Pirate liked picking blueberries with her great-grandfather last weekend (for a few minutes until she got too hot). Mostly we're pretty happy, and that's good. I get to start seeing my shrink again next week, any maybe that'll help start resolving the lingering back-burnered issues. We get to go to Chicago next month for a friend's wedding, and we're combining it with our 5th anniversary celebration, so it should be fun!